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okay three I
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri if
our forthcoming film the killings of
Tony Blair is as good as The Sensational
new book Blair Inc The Man Behind the
Mask I'll be happy the book tours the
horizont of Britain's most controversial
prime minister who took over the labor
party which he then renamed new labor
before launching invasions in
occupations and the main topic of the
book The Everest of money still piling
up as we speak some say that there's no
regime with dungeons so dark or Gallow
so Grim that Tony Blair and his cery of
family and friends won't work for them
as long as the Price Is Right Francis
Becket is a labor man but he co-authored
Blair Inc and is one of the country's
leading Blair lists he joins us now
Francis uh I don't know I've lost count
of how many of your books I've got on my
shelves you are indeed prolific is this
is 17th 18th 18th your 18th book and
surely your finest it is a brilliant
lavish uh production thank you uh and I
congratulate you on it but my first
question is about the timing you're a
labor man so am I essentially uh we both
want labor to win the forthcoming
general election why bring out a boot
now that is potentially surely damaging
to labor well if we both want want labor
to win the next general election then I
think that places us in a different
category from Tony Blair I don't think
Tony Blair wants that at all the whole
every statement every everything that he
has done in the past six months or so
seems designed in a subtle and Insidious
way to undermine the Ed miliband
leadership now I personally we we may
differ on this I personally I'm a great
admirer of Ed miliband I think he's a
climat figure what Blair seems to What
could seems to concern Blair is that
anybody else other than him or another
convinced blairite another Blair acolyte
can possibly lead a labor to Victory so
he makes all sorts of statements that
quite intentionally are designed to
undermine Ed miliband to say that the
public have a a problem with Ed miliband
and he uses his tame campaign group
within the labor party which is called
progress to try to fill the next par
parament with as many tame blairite MPS
as he can manage if Ed miliband wins the
next general election it will be overt
turny Blair's dead body uh which Segways
neatly into the money because one of the
most controversial things one of the
most undermining things in my view that
Blair has done in the last few months is
to hand the labor party £
105,000 which many would think uh was
blood money in one way or another and
he's given it to a hapless 105 Labor
candidates who must now in their
campaigns defend the fact that they're
using Tony Blair's money to fight their
campaign election I'm not sure I
necessarily agree with you about that I
think that the I think that the amount
of money that each one of them has had
about
,000 uh certainly may not necessarily
have liked the way Tony Blair earns it
from uh all sorts of dictators all over
all over the world but um there are
sorts of far less Pleasant sources of
money as you know but not everyone
watching this will know the quotation I
used of uh of gallows grim and dungeons
dark come straight from the labor Anthem
uh the red flag uh it is true isn't it
that there appear to be no limits to the
venality of any tyranny that Tony Blair
and family and friends will work for I'm
afraid that is true yes there is no the
the uh the the dictator of Kazakhstan
naab bayf uh is an extraordinarily good
example the uh he he was reelected
unopposed last time with I think it was
92.5% of the vote but it is amazing to
see a labor prime minister and his
right-and man the spin doctor Alistair
Campbell their empire stretches far and
wide they're working for the kuwaitis
they're working for uh the UAE for for a
Saudi oil company and so on all the
while Mr Blair continued to hold down
for seven long years almost eight the
position of Middle East peace Envoy
nobody see a conflict of interest in all
that well of course if it had been a
proper government appointment it would
have been illegal for him to do all of
those things if he'd been a member of
parliament for example then the the
rules the Nolan rules quite properly
would have prevented him would have said
no this is a conflict of interest you
can't do it he was only able to do it
because of the kind of informality with
which he was appointed as Middle East
peace Envoy um
and one of the very first things he did
as Middle East peace Envoy was to go and
visit the Amir of Kuwait uh now he's got
a very well staffed office the as
middleast peace Envoy the envoy office
he didn't take one single member of
staff from that office instead he took
Jonathan Powell who was a senior
consultant with Tony Blair Associates
whether anything came out and who was
with him in Downing Street before was
with him in Downing Street before that
now whether anything came out of that by
way of Middle East peace we really have
no idea we have no way of finding out
what we do know is that there was a 27
million pound consultancy contract with
the Emir of kuwa and the perception
persists that that job as Middle East
Envoy to Tony Blair seemed to be being
used as a calling card all over the
Middle East now the fact is his his
predecessor in the job James Wolfson had
worked the former president of the World
Bank had worked very very hard on Middle
East peace work enormously hard so hard
he made himself he made himself ill he
earned the respect of the Palestinians I
was told by Dr Hannah nashra the
Palestinian negotiator that she had an
enormous admiration for what James
wolson had had tried to do that Tony
Blair announced that he would spend one
week a month in the region on on the job
and actually the best information I can
get is that was about two and a half
days a month on that
job I don't think anybody would ever
have blamed Tony Blair for failing to
bring about peace in the Middle East an
awful lot of people have tried and it's
uh a pretty intractable sort of problem
but I think what they're going to blame
him for and should blame him for is that
he doesn't appear even to have tried
he's sat on the job which somebody else
might have been doing and and and might
have wanted to put their heart and soul
into it and this seems to me to be it's
not only unforgivable but extraordinary
because the chance to make a
contribution towards peace in the Middle
East seems to me to to to fulfill the
ambition of the most ambitious
politician I can't imagine any any
politician given that chance not saying
oh yes oh my I'll give it my
it's been seven years seven lean years
to get all biblical uh seven lean years
for the Palestinians seven fat years
though for uh for the Blair and uh for
Blair Inc will self in our film uh uses
the phrase uh that he was
astounded by the avarice uh of Tony
Blair were you yes I I had I had some I
wasn't perhaps IM immediately astounded
because I had some idea before I started
work but I am astounded at at how how
desperately he seems to how much he's
prepared to abase himself for money um I
listened with horror to an
extraordinary video that he contributed
to that was telling the world what a
fine chap nazab F was I'm going to cut
you short just because there's only time
for me to ask you this it's of no great
Import in the big picture but what have
you got in the book on Wendy Deng and
the extraordinary uh friendship between
our former prime minister and the former
wife of Rupert Murdoch who helped to put
him there well the lawyers got most of
it I'm afraid um but don't take any
risks on our team I I no I I'll be very
careful here um what what we can tell
you is I cannot tell you whether Tony
Blair and Wendy Bing Wendy ding were at
it uh what I can tell you is that Rupert
Murdoch is certain that they were and
this is doing Blair enormous damage in
the one place that matters to him now
which is the United States of America uh
what and and and there's a wrenching
iron in all this because you all
remember back in 1994 when he came in
and said no no the labor party is quite
wrong to think that Rupert Murdock's an
enemy we've got to make a friend of him
we've got to embrace him he went all
over the world to to pay court Godfather
to one of their children and yet now
quite suddenly all that has fallen apart
and now he's saying I can't get a a
decent showing in the press the murdocks
the the Press Barons are against me and
I I feel there's a wrenching R in all
that if if the Press Bar if I suppose if
it's Tony Blair versus rert Murdoch
you've got to say what a shame
somebody's got to
win as HRI Kissinger almost said it's a
fantastic book Blair Inc The Man Behind
the Mask Francis Becket the cour
coauthor thanks for joining us the
Sputnik coming up after the break in the
middle of the Malcolm X Festival he's
organizing sukant chandan on what
Malcolm X means or should mean to us on
the 50th anniversary of his
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murder welcome back to Sputnik 50 years
ago in the Yorn Ballroom in New York the
greatest black leader in America was
gunned down in the most mysterious
circumstance ances his murder came less
than 2 years after the assassination of
President John F Kennedy and 3 years
before that of Dr Martin Luther King
which in turn was followed two months
later by the equally mysterious
assassination of presidential hopeful
Robert F Kennedy four dead leaders in
five years must have been a turbulent
time our next guest has organized a
wonderful program to Mark the 50th
Anniversary he's so Chandon and he joins
us now can thanks for coming on board
the Sputnik tell us about the festival
and how people can get involved in it
well the first annual Malcolm X Film
Festival is initiative of the Malcolm X
movement which is launching this August
and what we're intending to do on this
very important uh anniversary and we we
planned this three years in advance
because we knew in 2012 that 2015 was
going to be a big anniversary in our
political lives the 50th martydom
anniversary of Malcolm X who's a
towering and primary figure in the
struggle against colonialism and
neocolonialism and white supremacy Etc
so we wanted to put together a series of
events and that's what we are delivering
now uh it's seven Film Festival events
in six cities across this island also
one and the first of which which was in
West Belfast and that was not out of
coincidence that was out of design to
salute the Irish Freedom struggle in
their contribution in fighting one of
the greatest bloodiest genocidal
entities known to humanity which is the
British state which is an International
System of colonialism and
neocolonialism it was a very successful
event in West Belfast at which Bernadet
meski the Irish revolutionary at the
Battle of the bogside spoke at and Jerry
mcklin a former Irish Republican Army
prisoner of war and shenan member spoke
at as well and they as I said in my
report from that event translated
Malcolm X for our Irish audience so we
we continue now we've had it in West
Belfast Oxford and Birmingham and we
continue this weekend in Brighton and
then on to Bristol and two events in
London and people can find out about
this if they search on Facebook the
first annual Malcolm X Film Festival who
killed Malcolm
X the well when I understand situations
like this I I think there's two things
that you have to consider one which
which groups are the most powerful
involved in this and who does it benefit
the most these are the two questions I
think that are fundamental to unlocking
the key to these
Mysteries and it was I think it was
because Malcolm X much like Dr King
actually but much more profoundly and
concretely Malcolm X was the bridge
between the Black Liberation struggle in
the United States and as Malcolm's
daughter said elasa shabar at the Oxford
Film Festival malx came from a very
political family whose family was
involved in the garite uh Black
Liberation movement
and so the Black Liberation movement is
connected to the global South but what
Malcolm did which was very alarming for
the powers that be in the United States
he was directly linking that struggle
and actually saying no we actually under
the leadership of the actual existing
struggle and he was inspired by the
bandong non- Align movement strategy and
Mar his 60th anniversary this year yes
the Indonesian government is is is
marking that anniversary I'm happy to
hear as well so Malcolm was saying no
actually it's the African Liberation
movements who are showing us how we can
win our freedom through their
ideological Frameworks and their
practical Frameworks he was asked do you
think organization like the Mau should
be formed the United States and he said
yes I do actually so that was very
alarming because it was the same time
the alarms
me may do as well but it was the same
time that Malcolm said that
dollarisation ization of African states
which he did at the time advocating
Justice and support for the global South
African Liberation movement for uh the
the justice for black people but the
proximate uh cause are practitioners of
his murder were uh people who were
ostensibly moved by schismatic reasons
within the Nation of Islam uh do people
still believe that story or were these
merely um PSIs for the power in the
United States well exactly I think even
the shabal family will say very clearly
that the the the people who had the main
dominant hand in the assassination of
Malcolm X was the FBI CIA and the police
department Etc um so but yes there were
PES involved and yes there was a
internal Division and and a schismatic
division as you put it which
unfortunately turned quite sour
extremely sour and so yeah different
parties are involved but at the end of
the day I think even farak Khan has had
a reproach M with the Shabah family when
the FBI was trying to operate a sting on
uh kah shabaz herself in in in falsely
uh constructing a plot involving her in
assassinating Louie farakhan the leader
of the Nation of Islam so there's
complex factors that work how great
could Malcolm X have uh become because
his development was quite spectacular
over quite a short period of time uh his
ideological political development but he
had the the Charisma the leadership
qualities uh he really could have been a
contender uh in this most turbulent of
times the Vietnam uh struggle which he
was very clear about uh unlike uh others
in the Democratic party who were indeed
the they were doing the bombing I mean
could he have been an Obama could he if
that's not an insult could he have
actually burst into elected politics for
example well it's interesting you
mention Obama because in the Malcolm X
Movement Magazine we produced some
articles critiquing Manning Manning
Marble's book on Malcolm X off late
which he basically says that Malcolm was
orienting himself to a kind of Obama
likee politics but I don't think that
really stands true because malol if
anything he was entrenching himself more
profoundly and deeper with actually The
Liberation movements across the Planet
which Obama has nothing to do actually
Obama has been facilitating what's a
veritable recolonization of Africa which
was most uh traumatically expressed
through the bombing of Libya in 2011 so
I think Malcolm X and his martyrdom in a
way really just universalized them even
more more greater but I think Malcolm X
and and very much so Ben Bella in
Algeria uh in Kuma in in in Ghana were
saying to Malcolm we know your life is
under threat please come work with us
for African Liberation and So-Cal third
world Liberation Malcolm was committed
to his project within the United States
but although he spent most of the time
in the Middle East and Africa in the
last two years of his life so he was
very much committed to that and facing
whatever he needed to face and if that
meant death he faced it and Standing
Tall and proud and I think that's what's
so inspiration inspirational and that's
why we're holding this film festival
with an incredible amount of speakers
and supporting organizations including
the PF LP including the Black Panther
alumni including the Libyan resistance
um and and and and and others that we're
trying to develop a conversation and
network building amongst the Grassroots
in linking the Contin in relinking I
should say ourselves the current
generation to those who have come before
in the black and Asian radical tradition
let's talk about the current generation
because something's clearly gone wrong
uh in my introduction I I made the point
that uh the United States with in 5
years lost not one but two outstanding
black political figures who were as you
indicated in any case converging in
their political line but the United
States has no such black leaders today
the the black Congress caucus
is supporting Israel is uh endorsing uh
the bombing of country after country and
so on Obama's been such a g gigantic uh
disappointment and I don't want I don't
want to start on Britain I mean in the
60s and the 70s from amongst the black
uh population real radical action
activity and Leadership was present
what's happened today well the daughters
and sons of Malcolm in the 60s and
particularly the Black Panther Party who
are supporting the film festival uh
raised in a qualitative and quantitative
level the anti-racist struggle in the
United States and inspired the rest of
the planet in so doing but you're
absolutely right we are still living
through a period of defeat actually
which in Britain probably started in the
early 80s um so yes I mean you're
absolutely absolutely right but I think
again the Obama phenomenon is quite
important in this regard because the
neocolonial system in trying to elongate
its attempts at hegemony across the
planet it's trying to blackface it's
adopting black and as faces to its
system to try and make its system more
amable and acceptable to the people of
the global South so that's a great
challenge that we have and as elasa
shabbar said in her uh opinion piece in
the Washington Post recently that often
we somehow the whole um hands up don't
shoot slogan is a defeatist one it's one
that Revels in oppression whereas we're
in the politics of Liberation so again
it's to reconnect to that black radical
tradition within the west and to
reconnect to the existing Global South
struggle today uh how do you connect
that with the Ferguson uh developments
which Obama has I mean the the black
people are being gunned down almost
daily in the United States and the black
president of the United States is
backing the police exactly quite but but
but also I mean that that's true but
when we say black lives matter black
lives should matter on a global scale
not just in the United States and not
just in Britain but I think often one of
the problematics of uh the the Ferguson
protest and it's been great relatively
and historically it has seen upsurge of
Youth taking to the streets against
police brutality and against the system
in general but one thing I don't think
we've broken out of is that neocolonial
shell which Malcolm totally shattered
completely shattered and he said our
Liberation is predicated on the
liberation of the third world of Africa
and Asia and that's what we're trying to
reconstitute again and that's why we're
having Dr mus ibraim Lea khed ASA shabaz
Jerry MC cockling Bernadet meski and all
these other revolutionaries and zanu PF
as well in Zimbabwe engaging directly to
young people at the film festival to
rebuild that Unity that we lost well the
best of luck with it thanks sukant
chandan for
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that and that's all that you've got time
for this week in fact for a few weeks
because we're off for the general
election when are we back that's right
we'll be back Saturday 16 may but you
can still stay in touch with us on
Twitter rtor Sputnik and on Facebook you
can like us on Sputnik on Russia today
it's goodbye from me gri and from me
George Galloway it's been marvelous